The Center for HIV Law and Policy challenges barriers to the rights and health of people affected by HIV through legal advocacy, high-impact policy initiatives, and creation of cross-issue partnerships, networks and resources. We support movement building that amplifies the power of individuals and communities to mobilize for change that is rooted in racial, gender and economic justice.

A new blog from CHLP Executive Director Catherine Hanssens argues that theories of “trickle-down justice” in state HIV criminal law reform are a rationalization for leaving behind those most affected: sex workers and women.

Today, there is a growing movement of organizations and advocates across the country committed to seeing the end of HIV criminalization. While we can all agree that there needs to be change, a more urgent question may be how we’re defining the success of that change. What underlying principles are guiding this work?

A memo from the Trump Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services said it intended to use Title IX to define gender “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable." The proposal is a bare-knuckled assault on the civil rights and safety of people who identify as outside of the gender binary. It is an act of violence with very real and serious consequences for the health, healthcare, and related safety of individual young people.

On October 4, the Center for HIV Law and Policy, Harm Reduction Coalition, and the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable hosted a webinar providing an overview of the relationship between criminalization, viral hepatitis, and harm reduction. The webinar recording and slides are now archived below.

Updated September 2018! A resource for lawyers and community advocates outlining punitive laws, policies, and cases affecting PLHIV in all 50 states. It may be used as an aid for attorneys of PLHIV prosecuted for “HIV exposure” or non-disclosure of HIV status, as well as for advocates who want to reform the HIV criminal laws in their state.

SEARCH THE HIV POLICY RESOURCE BANK

The CHLP HIV Policy Resource Bank is a comprehensive database of materials to inform and support sound HIV advocacy. Search here to find quality memoranda, research, reports, legal and medical guides, court and agency decisions, pleadings and briefs, policy analyses and recommendations, and other materials. (For a full site search, including news and blog items, click here. For more information on searching the Resource Bank, see our User's Guide.)

Enter terms

FIND LAWS IN YOUR STATE

CHLP has compiled information on HIV laws in every state as they relate to HIV-specific criminal laws, guidelines for health care workers with HIV, youth access to STI testing and treatment, and HIV testing.